What does Seattle have that no other city has? OK, we’ve got the Seahawks. Yes!
Other than that notable distinction, Seattle is also the only U.S. city almost completely sandwiched between major bodies of salt and fresh water.
To the west and south are a busy downtown waterfront, a deepwater seaport and an industrial waterway. To the east are Lake Union, an urban/commercial/residential lake, and Lake Washington, a much larger, mostly residential lake crossed by a growing collection of floating bridges. To the north is the Ship Canal, a crowded, mostly industrial waterway that connects the two lakes to Puget Sound through a pair of Army Corps of Engineers locks.
That’s a lot of waterfront (about 150 miles on the freshwater side and over 70 miles on the salt water side). Per capita boat ownership in the Seattle area is also one of the highest in the country. There’s a lot to patrol and protect.
And that’s just what the Seattle Police Department’s Harbor Patrol unit does. With 11 boats, 28 officers and two civilians, the Harbor Patrol unit provides 24/7 operations out of its headquarters on the north side of Lake Union in the center of the city. During the summer, the unit usually has at least three boats out on patrol during the day. The rest of the year, two are normal.
The 28 officers are organized into four squads of seven with schedules something like a fire department. Each officer works a 24-hour shift followed by 24 hours off followed by another 24-hour shift followed by five days off.
As you might imagine, it’s a tight group.
“We’re a police department within a police department,” said Sgt. Kevin Haistings. “Except we do everything with boats.”
That everything includes diving, so all officers are specially trained, first by NOAA instructors and then in house for ice diving and deep diving, although 100 feet is the limit. Below that, the unit deploys an ROV, which can search for and recover bodies.
A third of the officers are also certified EMTs and almost a quarter of them have applied for their Coast Guard master licenses. Haistings said they get sea time from patrol duty but all other instruction and testing is done on their own time and dime. “It provides more knowledge about the community that we work with,” he said. “It also gives us more credibility within the marine community.”
All current harbor patrol officers at the unit previously served in other units, but they tend to stay put once stationed on the water. “It’s takes a couple years or more to get a taste of what we do here,” said Officer Mike Meder, a former SWAT officer. “Most of the guys here stay at least 10 to 12 years.”
Primary duties include marine law enforcement, rescue and assistance, but the unit also fights fires.
The Seattle Fire Department is the city’s primary firefighter on both water and land, but the Harbor Patrol unit has three boats with firefighting pumps and monitors capable of up to about 3,500 gpm.
Located centrally on Lake Union, Harbor Patrol can usually respond faster than the fire department.
“We’ll respond as fast as we can,” said Haistings, “and then sometimes we’ll get someone from the fire department on board to handle the monitors and radios.”
“We tell them not to swivel the rooftop or bow monitors,” said Officer Tom Fitzgerald. “Just keep the stream over the bow and we’ll move the boat, otherwise the boat is wandering all over the place.”
THE FLEET
Harbor Patrol maintains a fleet of about a dozen boats. The current roster lists 11, but Sgt. Haistings said the unit is about to get a couple of new Zodiacs, which may be replacements or additions.
The oldest boat is a 20'×8' Almar built in 1983 with a single jet drive powered by a Ford 351 V-8. Called Patrol 15, the boat is used as a backup and for shallow-water operations.
The newest boat is Patrol 9, a 44'9"×14'8" RBM-C built in 2012 by Kvichak Marine in Seattle. Similar to the Coast Guard’s RB-Ms, the vessel is powered by a pair of MTU Series 60 diesels rated at 835 hp with Rolls-Royce waterjets. Seattle added the RBM-C after checking out a pair of RBM-Cs operated by the New York Police Department Harbor Unit. “This is our primary command-and-control boat,” said Fitzgerald. “It’s got good speed and is stable on rough seas.”
Patrol 9 is also the vessel of choice for transferring SWAT teams while underway, and “trollies on each side allow us to get hooked in and be secure with hands free,” said Fitzgerald. The RBM-C is also the primary vessel for day-to-day operations on salt water. It’s also the only boat in the fleet with air-conditioning.
The Harbor Patrol unit has two other Kvichak-built boats: Patrol 2 is a 38'×13' aluminum vessel powered by twin 575-hp Cats with Hamilton waterjets. Built in 2005, it has a 1,000-gpm pumping capacity. The 43'9"×15' Patrol 4, built by Kvichak in 1998, is powered by twin 660-hp Cats. It can pump 3,500 gpm at 150 psi through a rooftop monitor and a bow monitor.
Other local/regional boatbuilders represented in the Seattle fleet include Safe Boats, Munson Marine, Modutech Marine and North River.
The 31'×10' Safe boat, built in 2005, is powered by triple 250-hp Mercury Verado outboards and is used for rapid rescue and interdiction.
Patrol 1 was built by Munson in 1989. The 38'×13'6" deep-V aluminum boat is powered by twin 750-hp Cats and is used for day-to-day operations.
Modutech delivered an aluminum 30-footer in 2010 that is powered by twin Yamaha 250-hp outboards. Called Patrol 5, the vessel is the unit’s primary platform for side-scanning sonar, ROV deployment and diving.
Oregon’s North River supplied the 25'×9' Patrol 3 in 2009. A RIB with twin 225-hp Yamahas, Patrol 3 is used for rapid rescue and interdiction.
Other boats in Seattle’s fleet include a fiberglass 17' Boston Whaler and a pair of 19' Zodiac RIBs.
The Lake Union headquarters also includes a shop with a full-time mechanic and several back-up engines ready to be swapped out.
Most boats are kept at the dock ready to go, but it’s common to also have a boat on a trailer ready to be towed outside the jurisdiction to help out with emergencies and other police work in neighboring areas.
Because the Harbor Patrol unit faces the same challenge as the Seattle Fire Department when it comes to having a presence in both salt and fresh water, Harbor Patrol’s solution is to have moorage available on the salt water side for use as needed. All the boats are kept in fresh water for reasons of both maintenance and security.
The officers sees themselves as a part of the waterfront community and are very protective of it. Many calls come directly to the Harbor Patrol offices from homeowners and businesses on the lakes, bypassing 911.
“We like being on the water,” said Haistings. “It’s a fine mix between just being an enforcement arm and being part of the boating community and interacting with the people who live and work on the lakes everyday.”
